A Tapestry of Dreams Read Free Page A

she takes,” she added proudly, lowering her voice so that none but her son could hear, “not that sour whey that leaked from her mother’s tit.”
    The men helped Bruno back across the hall and up the narrow stairway to the third floor of the south tower. The door, thick and ironbound—a last, strong defense should enemies fight their way into the great keep—was open. Bruno blinked, for the light was strong compared with the dimness of the hall below. The true windows of the hall opened only inward, on the bailey, where the high walls that surrounded the whole hilltop blocked the sun of early morning and evening. Here the windows opened southeast and southwest over the cliff above the river, and even though they were set deep in the thick wall and closed against the worst of the winter cold by thin-scraped hides, the room was bright. The men paused uncertainly in the doorway, and Bruno noted with dull surprise that they had both turned their heads away from the loom that stood near the hearth.
    “Come! Come!” Audris cried, waving them toward the chair on the other side of the fire.
    They brought him to the chair and fled, as if there were something to fear in the bright, quiet room. Bruno hesitated, knowing it was not fitting for him to sit in Audris’s chair, but she laughed and pushed him with one finger, and his numb knees buckled so that he would have sat hard enough to jar him had not a bright, embroidered cushion softened his collapse. Then she clapped her hands, and from behind him came a maid, who laid the robe she was carrying across the back of the chair and knelt to remove his shoes.
    Audris came to his side and began to struggle with the buckle that held the ventail of his mail hood. It was plain she had never undone one before.
    “Let me,” Bruno said, but his fingers were swollen and awkward, and in the end, seeing what he was trying to do, Audris unhooked it.
    He would not allow her to continue undressing him, however, and when she saw that he was truly being made uncomfortable by her presence, she went away to fetch salve for his chilblained hands and feet and left him to the maid. When she returned, he was wrapped in the warm robe, dozing in the chair. Audris was as gentle as possible in applying the salve, but when she looked up from her task, he was watching her.
    “I am sorry if I hurt you,” she said softly.
    Bruno lifted a hand as if to touch her cheek but did not, just shook his head, smiled, and said, “Your fingers are as light as feathers. It was your gentleness that woke me.”
    “You are ill cared for in your service.” Audris sighed as she shifted her position from kneeling to sitting on the cushion she had used while she was salving Bruno’s hands. “Bruno, will you not come home?”
    “No,” he said firmly. “I will help fight off the Scots if they come, but then I will go.”
    Audris’s bright eyes examined his face for a moment and then dropped. Under Bruno’s calm, she sensed a deep uneasiness and uncertainty. She lifted her eyes again. “If I asked Uncle Oliver—”
    “No!” he exclaimed, cutting her off, and then, seeing how shocked she was, he went on hastily, “Audris, you must not think Sir Oliver put me out. He is not a cruel or unjust man. Had he wished to be rid of me, he could have driven me away when I was a child—or had me killed. Instead, he trained me carefully, found honorable service for me, and even gave me as much as many men give their younger sons—good arms and armor and a good horse.”
    “Of course Uncle Oliver is not cruel or unjust,” Audris agreed. “Who knows better than I? A babe a few months old left heiress to a rich property—how many men and women, who were the next heirs, could have resisted allowing that babe to take a chill or be carried away by some other sad illness or accident? I owe Uncle Oliver and Aunt Eadyth my life. I understand that it was right for you to be in service with some other household, but now, when